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tɛ̃, tã, ts︢ũ, tʃ︢ũ and kɛ̃ never occur. If the h is in fact filling the second consonant slot of the syllable template this is easily explained since the vowels are therefore co-occurring adjacent to the h
which is more promiscuous than other obstruents.
3.4.3.3.2 Sonorants with h
Among the sonorants, only the nasals occur in combination with h. Recall that in these clusters, h precedes a nasal phoneme and assumes the place of articulation of the nasal, resulting in a voiceless
nasal fricative: [m̥m], [n̥n] and [ɲ̥ɲ]. For the remainder of the dissertation, I report each example with the
underlying glottal fricative hm, hn and h ɲ instead of the voiceless nasal. This encoding is faithful to the
phonemic inventory and does not have an effect on the tonal system. Again, examples are supplied in tabular form to demonstrate the patterns of co-occurrence between the clusters and the vowels. In Table 3-
26, the clusters are listed down the far left column and the vowels across the top row and the underlined syllables represent stress.
Table 3-26 h-Nasal Clusters
cluster ĩ
ɛ̃ ã
õ ũ
hm -
[ m̥m]
hmi˧ ‘mestiso’
ma˧hmɛ˧ ‘vomit’
hma˥ ‘black’
hn - [n̥n] -
hni˩ ‘we excl.’
hnɛ˥ ‘tepejilote
palm tree’ khi˥˧hna˧
‘light weight’ hnu˩
‘cornfield’ hɲ - [ɲ̥ɲ]
hɲa˩ ‘chili’
hɲu˩ ‘dizziness’
There are no monosyllabic examples available for hm ɛ or hna so multisyllabic words are
provided to show that co-occurrence is possible. Table 3-27 reinforces that o never co-occurs with nasals. Also, hm does not occur with u while
hɲ does not occur with i or ɛ, these restrictions again align with the feature co-occurrence restrictions [labial labial]
σ
and [front front]
σ
. All of these co-occurrence gaps are similar to those found in the non-clusters nasal consonants as Table 3-27 shows.
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Table 3-27 Comparison of h-Sonorant vs. simple Sonorant with oral vowels
h-Sonorant with oral vowels Simple Sonorant with oral vowels
Cluster i
ɛ a
o u
Consonant i
ɛ a
o u
ʔm m
ʔn n
ʔɲ ɲ
Again, similar to the glottal stop-sonorant clusters, the co-occurrence patterns coincide with the nasal patterns rather than the glottal fricative patterns indicating ordering in the onset which aligns the
sonorant with the nucleus rather than the glottal fricative. The glottal features do not appear to be a characteristic of the entire onset because, in this case, the presence of the glottal does not license any
additional vowel co-occurrences versus the simple sonorant. Like the simple sonorant consonants, there are no examples of co-occurrence with nasal vowels, therefore aligning with [sv sv]
σ
. It should also be noted that while several examples of h-nasal clusters occur in common, frequently used words like ‘black,’
‘cornfield,’ ‘chili’ and ‘we’ in general examples of this type of cluster are not widespread.
3.4.3.4 Clusters Beginning with Nasals or Pre-nasalized Consonants
